Is David Attenborough right? Sure he is!

Well,well, well, a little bit of good news such as the UK’s vaccination programme doing extremely well and thousands flock to the travel agents to book a foreign holiday. So far so good? Well Europe is not free from Covid and their vaccination programme is woeful! So, I don’t want to be a grumpy so and so but I am afraid if you pay money for a holiday now you may lose it. Europe is ready to put bans on travel almost everywhere. I would just wait until the politicians finally get their act together, stop talking nonsense and deal with this pandemic properly.

As David Attenborough has indicated it is us humans who are killing the planet, nobody else. And for my thinking it is flying all over the place that is a big part in this killing process. Flying, driving, it all puts tonnes of CO2 into the air. Dirty industry another. And what is worse we really have the technology to do better, in fact we could ban the internal combustion engine today! Or at least we could ban the use of oil! Looking at how society is and has become, certainly in the western world, Europe, parts of Asia, the Americas, the Middle East I think Mr Attenborough is right, global warming, climate change in other words, is a threat to security. A threat to all our existence. The existence of life on this planet. Are we going down as the generation that killed the only life in the solar system? Even perhaps the only life in the galaxy? We do not know if there is other life, we have never heard of or seen it but even so we should really start thinking about our actions. And part of that is considering our appetites for foreign travel!

Mars is ours or is it?

Despite the pandemic still going nicely the Perseverance spacecraft has landed on Mars. The planet Mars that is. Just to make that clear. It seems to me that humanity is standing in front of a gate. Two choices. Stay as we are or open the gate and go through. If we stay put then we shall have to cope with the usual things, un-equality, diseases, weather, climate change, rising sea levels, the lot. If we go though the gate, space exploration, new technologies, harnessing power systems that do not deplete. Perhaps the gate is a way of beginning a future that at the moment is pretty unclear. But it could mean he beginning of getting to grips with the solar system, galaxy and the universe. That is why Perseverance and its predecessors were and are important. Of course, there are many problems on Earth still to be solved. No denying that but through mastering technologies, existing and still to be discovered we might have a chance to properly manage humanity’s existence on the planet, if not ensuring its survival! It is quite exciting to see these clear pictures of an alien world and frankly these pictures show a warning. A warning that the solar system, the universe are hard places that do not take prisoners! Mars today is a dry, dusty world but by all accounts was not always so. Now it might be that natural processes occurring made Mars desiccated but as this was billions of years ago who knows it could have been a type of life that did things much as we are today on Earth. Fouling water, warming up the atmosphere, using all the resources that sustain life. Cutting down all the forests, poisoning the oceans. Of course this is just me thinking, no-one knows for real whether that is or even can be true but without proof.....we might know at a later time. But we should heed the warning signals and know that existence is frail, balances need to be maintained. Everything we know has a beginning and an end. Hence so has our existence, the solar system, the galaxy. We are not certain how the universe works, finite or infinite. But let’s try to find out!

Ed. But at the same time we should also know the incredible distances. Is is really feasible we can reach the stars? I am all for research but I am also a realist! Perhaps it is really simple, at this moment in time we cannot reach any stars, too far and we haven't the technology. Besides all that, present technology is not particularly clean! Remember CO2. So, I believe that to do things like space exploration, you should start from a clean slate. Sort the Earth's problems out. It will not do to live on Mars and leave Earth like the planet as depicted in a Disney film called 'Wall-E'. A little sentient robot left all on his own clearing the mountains of rubbish left by humans before they 'skipped' off the planet to become fat in a supersize rocket 'parked' beyond the planet Neptune. Great stuff but a cautionary tale!

 

One Universe, two, three, thousands? Uncountable? Precisely!

As an avid reader of Quora both English and Dutch I noted the discussion concerning whether the Universe was finite or infinite. Interesting? Yes, it damn well is! Obviously there will be some who say ‘Why bother with this, there are enough problems on this planet as it is’!

That is undeniably true but I do think that it is good to figure our place within the scheme of things. And no friends, I am not going to talk about God although I am a Christian and go to Church as permitted by Covid-19 or not. No, it is important because it will give us a much better idea how the world came to be an more so how it might become. Again, at the moment we do not treat our world very well either so it might be prudent to figure out our standing within the Universe or more specifically our solar system. Most people observe the starry heavens and think no further, what they see is all there is. No friends, it is not. What you see is the ‘Observable Universe’. As a picture put on a previous post shows, it is globular and we are right in the centre of it. Why is that? Because from our viewpoint we see all around to the exact distance our eyes or their aids like telescopes, will allow. However, there is much more ‘outside’ of that . The Quora question says this: Einstein’s theories say that our universe is a manifold which is just a fancy word for a shape with certain mathematical properties. This theory admits that our universe could be just one part of a much larger cosmos, a bubble in a much larger cauldron so to speak. This is mathematically possible while there is no evidence for it. We cannot see into that outer cosmos by any known method. That outer cosmos would be outside of what is called the observable universe and thus not observable to us. Great! And this comes to what I think about as well. We are in a universe amongst many and possibly infinite universes. Each contained within its ‘bubble’. It might just be that on another plane we are a ‘Quark’. With two other Quark universes close by. It begins to sound like on another plane the whole thing about us is that we live in just an atomic particle of a much bigger set-up. I am tired now I need a stiff drink and go to sleep. Doesn't it just put us to rights? Cheers!

Save the planet? But how if you want normal?

As I drink my morning coffee I cannot help but think how ill-informed and stupid a lot of people can be. I might not be the cleverest dog on the planet but some of those in power astound me.

So far so good but they show a complete misunderstanding of how a society actually exists. The problems that we are now having to face are these, firstly to combat Covid and possibly related diseases. Secondly, climate change. This has raised two problems, inclement weather patterns and getting worse, and rising sea-levels.

To claim, as we can read in all the newspapers, ‘we MUST get back to normal’, and not spell out what normal means, is practical suicide. Normal so far I think has brought us to the precipice staring us in the face. Unbridled capitalism, greed and avarice being humanity’s smiling face. OK, now we know but do we know what to do about it? Are we able to, can we re-design our living pattern? Will we be prepared for less? Because that is what it will mean. We will need to grow more of our own food, fruit and other things. We will have to put hard cash into research, robotics, demographics. It will mean curtailing immigration, followed by very high standards in education because we need scientists, engineers, the lot! We do need toilet cleaners, so let’s invent toilets that clean themselves. You see the argument? Insofar population is concerned we have overstepped what can really be supported. To say we need more immigrants doing the menial tasks is plain ridiculous whilst at the same time allowing nearly 2 million unemployed! So, yes we need to change. But more than anything we need people in power of the right calibre. We don’t need charlatans, or woofty speakers nor even sniffy dressed Eton marvels. By sniffy you know what I mean? Correct, drug addled hooray Henry's. Change it all, do the right thing and indeed, save the planet!

Can you remember what you said two years ago? Yes, I can....if I see the film.

Who doesn’t just love to take the mick out of politicians? I do! I suppose to have a bit of fun about those people who think they know it all, who believe they are better than you, who actually believe what they say is the absolute truth, that's ok! Take Sir Starmer, yes him the previous spy boss (God help us!) supposedly a clever man but he couldn’t remember what he said a few years ago about some European Medicine outfit. PM Boris mentioned this and an outraged Sir Keir called him a liar. Hahaha yes, ain’t that funny, one politician calling another one a liar. That’s for the comics in the Apollo, London stage! But I suppose Sir is in a bit of trouble, he is leading a party that has lost its Raison d'être! It’s no longer representing us, the working man and woman. Yes, the working class and the Liberal party is nowhere to be seen either. So, we all went for patriotism and voted Conservative. Even though normally we don’t like Conservatism. I have a jaundiced eye, voted Conservative with two hands in my pocket, holding the pencil between clenched jaws. What’s more looking at today’s Labour party it was the right thing to do. It is led by London ultra-leftie liberals who know as much as a three toed sloth and move as fast. Let me say this Sir Keir, if you want my vote look at what excites me, what concerns me, how I exist in this country of high taxation, little opportunity and multiply that a million-fold. If you can change the society to a more egalitarian one, and reduce the government apparatus. Less nanny lawmaking and above all let’s see if you can manufacture a proper Constitution! Then I might change my vote. Over and out!

Ed Taking the 'mick' means poking fun. Slang expression.

Sunning Celebs, no, what the...?

Anyone thinking like me that we will have to throw the book and the wellies at those celebs who have flouted, yes FLOUTED, the Covid rules? There is not a day when you won’t see some photo of a Z-lister in the papers sunning themselves on some far-flung beach. Sure, they can afford it and I cannot but I am following the rules. I applied to have the money back I spent on tickets to Holland. I had it back minus costs. So, what’s the difference? Ah yes, I forgot, no sun in Holland and no chance to parade my glorious body on the beach by the North Sea. Well, does it sound like I’m the jealous type? In one way yes, and in another, no!

So, listen Rita, you were out of order in a big way, you are a lead, an example for many and failed miserably. So, take your two week ‘relaxation’ in Aussieland and start thinking about how to behave in a responsible manner. Frankly that goes for all celebs who think that Covid-19 does not concern them and that they can do whatever comes into their tiny brain.

It should by now be abundantly clear that wearing masks and keeping distance plus frequent hand-washing does make a big difference. So, celebs get your act together and show us all why we should look up to you!